FileMaker Go

After being high on the wish list for businesses large and small FileMaker Pro databases are now accessible from your iPhone or iPad. While Bento on desktop and phone is a fine solution for personal databases and small (indeed tiny) business solutions the lack of real database solutions for the iPhone has always been a shortcoming. It also has to be said that I am a long time user/developer and huge fan of FileMaker Pro. I’ve long felt that it answers most of the problems of database development and use so the release of FileMaker Go was welcome news. FileMaker Go can work in one of two ways; you either shift a copy of your database to the device or you can connect to a hosted database via WiFi or 3G. The hosting can be done by either FMP Server or the desktop version and both version 10 and 11 are supported for hosting. For shifting to the device any version after 7.5 (when FMP underwent a file format change) can be opened. One big caveat for hosting: in my testing it seemed that not a lot of each layout is cached so complex layouts with lots of graphics might use a lot of your data plan under 3G. Connecting to a host is easy and will seem familiar to anyone who has done the same on the desktop. In the upper right hand corner of the opening screen are icons for add a host and open a host. When you choose to add a host a panel appears where you enter an IP address or host name. You can also enter a title for the host that is displayed in the connect to host panel. There is also a button for local hosts that displays all the hosts on your local network. This is an almost perfect product for the iPhone and iPad. While it does not allow you to build or modify databases and layouts you do get all the power of the desktop product including calculations and some scripting (scripts that call on things the iPad can't do — print, for example — won't work). The lack of design features is not really felt in use as on a mobile device you really only want a “client” and most will be happy making design changes on their desktop. I only had an hour using the iPhone version (sold as a separate app on the App Store for $A23.99) on a borrowed iPhone and, while FM Go does a good job with scrolling and pinching, to get around a layout anyone using it on a regular basis on such a small device will almost certainly want to design layouts specifically for the iPhone. On the iPad this is not so much of a problem — the larger screen allows for more of a large layout to be used in one chunk. It’s also much easier to tweak a large layout for the 1024x768 pixel screen; I found it an almost impossible task to get some screens down to iPhone size and ended up with layouts best used in landscape mode and scrolling down to enter or view more of the record. In use this product feels just like the desktop version. Layout items such as drop down menus, scrolling lists and such all just work. The only slowness is in layout rendering, on the 3GS iPhone it felt more sluggish than my iMac, a little better on my iPad. Once again device-specific layouts will ameliorate this problem. FM Go also has some minor differences in scripting from its desktop big brother. Some are obvious — printing for example — while others are a little more difficult to understand. FileMaker has provided excellent documentation on the differences and also some warnings about script problems. (http://help.filemaker.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7733/). The given example is a script that does an import and then deletes the first record (it might be a header in a report). Since the import step will fail, your script would delete a good record. There are other similar problems of which you might have to be careful. One good difference is that the “Get(SystemPlatform )” calculation returns a new result (3) for an iOS device so you can modify your scripts to check if they are running on an iPad or iPhone. The one problem that FileMaker has not attempted to fix is synchronisation. If, instead of having a hosted file, you choose to transfer the database to your iOS device, you will have to find a way of syncing the data back to the main file yourself. While this is a problem I can fully understand why FileMaker Go puts this back on the database designer — syncing is never an easy problem and the answer is often highly specific to a solution. I did, however, find a way of automating it to a couple of simple steps using iTunes, Automator and FMP scripting. My one and only complaint — pricing. Having to pay $24 for the application on an iPhone and then another $48 to have it on my iPad when they appear to be identical seems to be a little bit of profiteering, particularly since I have to buy the desktop product anyway. The more reasonable six bucks for Bento is certainly closer, though there too I need to buy it twice (but the same price for both platforms.) My personal decision was to not get it for my phone, only my iPad. I seem to remember complaining about pricing in my FileMaker 11 review and here I am doing it again. Is this wholly-owned Apple subsidiary shooting itself in the foot with these pricing tactics? I think so.